One Flesh, One Food
My husband likes vanilla tea. He consumes yoghurt with a soup spoon straight from the tub, drinks milo mixed with condensed milk, but refuses to eat the stems of broccoli, even when they've been well-dipped in ketchup.
For him, I gave up chicken wings and drumsticks, smothered in soya sauce and oven-baked for an hour. For him, I gave up seaweed soup, thousand-year-old eggs and fried dace so crunchy you can eat the bones. I've even just about reached the point where I'll give up broccoli ... but not quite.
It's not that my husband's tastes are too discriminating. I know one couple who have major food issues at the heart of their marriage: he doesn't like tomatoes; she hates onions, capsicum, corn and rice. The culinary compromises they make—the things they sacrifice out of love-are enough to make a gourmet chef throw in the tea towel.
But such is the nature of wedlock. What is it that we vow when we stand before the minister and guests, a prelude to the consummation of wedding fruitcake?
For better, for worse,
for richer, for poorer,
in sickness and in health,
no matter what your gastronomic preferences,
til death do us part.
In the first and all subsequent communions, you discover other tastes that your partner likes but which you have never tried. He learns to adore coconut basil chicken; you develop a fondness for roasts. He acquires a taste for sago and sweet walnut soup; you become preferential to cherry ripe slice. He starts eating shark's fin, fish stomach, processed squid and chicken feet; you teach yourself how to make real pumpkin soup out of real pumpkins, risotto, lasagne and Yorkshire pudding.
A whole new world of gourmet adventures ensues. You both get hooked on sundried tomatoes. You discover a whole new world catered with butter chicken and vegetable korma with mango lassis and cheese naans. Pizza becomes more exciting when it's topped with Peking duck and hoi sin sauce. Blue vein cheese has never looked so good.
But the temptation is to be selfish. One married man I know laments the fact his wife shares his love of pistachio nuts because it means there will be less for him. Next door, a woman jealously wolfs down her chocolate eclair in secret so her husband can't ask for a bite. And then, of course, when I turn on the television, I see those tiresome ads where the bereft partner whines, “But that's my cherry ripe!”
Food, like all good things, is better when it's shared. How lonely to eat popcorn by oneself in a darkened cinema. How tragic to find a wishbone in your chicken and have no one to split it with. You end up throwing out half a bottle of Fanta because you simply can't finish it. You make yourself sick with too much toast and still the rest of the loaf goes mouldy. Selfish food isn't fun food, and the couple that shares together, grows together—in stature and in love.
So delight yourself in the menu of your youth. Make five-star meals, not food fights. Drink from your own carton but not if it will put her off her dinner. And, above all, worship God in the heart of your spiritual kitchen.
Karen Beilharz
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